Monthly Archives: November 2007

According to the Daily Mail, Blue Peter admit ‘competition winners’ were child actors:

In the latest deception, children were asked to apply to the Blue Peter website for an opportunity to go to the show’s studios and interview Dead Ringers impersonator John Culshaw.

Six children were chosen, but after the show it emerged two had been picked from a local drama group to liven up the slot.

Each child was asked to come up with a question and joke with John Culshaw as he impersonated a number of celebrities.

It is understood that the show’s producers enlisted the help of the actors to make sure the item went according to plan.

“It would have been preferable not to have given viewers the impression that all the children in the item had contacted the programme through the website.”

“In recent months we’ve taken a number of measures to ensure we get these things completely right, including the introduction of special training, so that viewers can continue to have complete confidence in the programme.”

That last paragraph is revealing – it doesn’t say much for the BBC and its staff that they need to ‘take a number of measures’ and introduce ‘special training’ to ensure basic honesty when it comes to something as straightforward as not deceiving their viewers.

This story has also been covered by The Times, Blue Peter had child actors pose as viewers, The Telegraph, Blue Peter in new fake scandal over ‘viewers’ and the Grauniad, Blue Peter in third TV fakery row. Curiously, BBC Views Online went with the BBC’s defence of itself up front, Blue Peter plays down ‘fake’ row, whilst the story wasn’t mentioned at all on the BBC Ten O’Clock News, nor in what I saw of the One O’Clock or Six O’Clock News programmes.

After the first Blue Peter fakery incident, where an alleged phone line problem led to a visiting child posing as a competition winner, Mark Thompson blamed “blind panic on the studio floor“. That defence isn’t even plausible for the subsequent rigging of the vote to name a Blue Peter cat, nor this latest Blue Peter deception. Clearly there is something else at work other than ‘blind panic’.

Earlier this year the BBC ordered its staff to come clean about any other deceptions that they were aware of. In July the BBC claimed they had audited over a million hours of output going back to January 2005 and had uncovered six further instances of dishonesty, with the implication that six instances of cheating out of a million hours wasn’t too bad.

The reality is that the BBC’s ‘audit’ relied on the honesty of BBC staff to come forward and admit their dishonesty – hardly the most rigorous of investigatory techniques. The latest Blue Peter deception was revealed not by the BBC, but by one of the BBC’s child actors spilling the beans while chatting with one of the genuine competition winners. So much for the effectiveness of the BBC’s audit.

According to the Telegraph report:

Sources close to the programme said the child actors were contacted because the show had simply not received enough interesting questions from viewers.

…which, if true, sounds strange – that out of thousands of competition entries the BBC could find only four that were capable of being used on the show. Sufficiently strange that, without any further details about who won the competition and who the child actors were, would it be too much of a stretch to wonder if the real reason for selecting the fake competition winners was some kind of misguided attempt to ensure the winning group reflected the BBC’s idea of vibrant multicultural Britain? Call me a cynic, but given the political correctness of the BBC we all know and love, that wouldn’t be much of a surprise.

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.

Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.

In the US, at least, the media swings left as well, according to a new academic survey on coverage of the current presidential contest. Investor’s Business Daily reports that:

a joint survey by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy — hardly a bastion of conservative orthodoxy — found that in covering the current presidential race, the media are sympathetic to Democrats and hostile to Republicans.

Democrats are not only favored in the tone of the coverage. They get more coverage period. This is particularly evident on morning news shows, which “produced almost twice as many stories (51% to 27%) focused on Democratic candidates than on Republicans.”

The most flagrant bias, however, was found in newspapers. In reviewing front-page coverage in 11 newspapers, the study found the tone positive in nearly six times as many stories about Democrats as it was negative.

Breaking it down by candidates, the survey found that Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were the favorites. “Obama’s front page coverage was 70% positive and 9% negative, and Clinton’s was similarly 61% positive and 13% negative.”

In stories about Republicans, on the other hand, the tone was positive in only a quarter of the stories; in four in 10 it was negative.

I have tracked down the survey, which can be found here

(Anyone who wants to explain away these findings will find plenty of excuses offered in here — for example, ‘Oh, but the front-runners got coverage that was equal in tone”. The silliest must be that if you take away the most-praised Democrat candidate (Obama) and the most-criticized Republican candidate (McCain) then the coverage is more equal in tone! Yes, and although 15 and 9 are unequal numbers, if you take some numbers away from 15, and add some numbers to 9, you’ll find they come closer to being equal).

Thanks to a commentator (who I can’t now find) who posted this link a while back.

, the BBC’s compulsory tellytax on every television owning household in the UK – sometimes to mock all the wonderful things that are possible because of, as the BBC boasts, “the unique way the BBC is funded”, at others to note, for instance, the unique way the BBC’s tellytax is collected by BBC bootboys.

This often leads to interesting discussions about both the theory and the practice of the BBC’s mass intimidation approach to customer relations, with their fleet of TV detector vans that apparently roam the land, supposedly hunting down unlicensed televisions. Here, courtesy of heartandhumour on Youtube, is a classic piece of 1970’s BBC TV detector van propaganda:

Scary stuff indeed! Those of a nervous dispostion can seek comfort and support over at Jonathan Miller’s TV licence resistance forum.

Other gems from the same source include ‘Wish I’d brought me brolly‘, Prince the talking dog from That’s Life and, for viewers in Wales, Tufty & Bobby crossing the road in Welsh.

, “a joint initiative from LSE and the London College of Communication aimed at working journalists, people in public life and students in the UK and around the world”, invites everyone to a public debate tomorrow evening:

The speakers will be Emily Bell of The Guardian, Evan Davies, the BBC’s Economics Editor, and Richard D. North, author of Scrap the BBC!* The debate will be chaired by Elinor Goodman, former political editor of Channel 4 News.

More details are available on the event page. See also: travel information, maps & directions and finding your way around LSE.

* Available in hardback direct from the publishers, The Social Affairs Unit, for a bargain £4.00 plus £2.75 postage via Amazon Marketplace (look for seller omm-sau).

Prime Minister Tony Blair has had a private audience with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican.

President George W Bush has discussed the sex scandal which has rocked the Catholic Church in the United States during a private audience with Pope John Paul II on Tuesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has voiced hope for improved understanding between the Catholic and Orthodox Christian churches, following an audience with Pope John Paul II.

Wait for it …

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has met Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican – the first audience by the head of the Roman Catholic Church with a Saudi monarch.

I may be wrong, but I thought it was King Abdullah who had an audience with the Pope, not the other way round. Radio Four’s Six O’Clock News (BBC Radio Player ’til tomorrow, 27 minutes in) told us the same thing.

“King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has met the Pope at theVatican, the frst time a head of the Roman Catholic Church has had an audience with a Saudi monarch“.

, so much so that at 1am London time, fifteen hours after the story went live, it remained the most popular story worldwide, according to BBC Views Online’s on Most Popular Now stats.

As is their way with anti-US stories, BBC Views Online enthusiastically reported:

The world’s richest model has reportedly reacted in her own way to the sliding value of the US dollar – by refusing to be paid in the currency.

Gisele Bündchen is said to be keen to avoid the US currency because of uncertainty over its strength.

The Brazilian, thought to have earned about $30m in the year to June, prefers to be paid in euros, her sister and manager told the Bloomberg news agency.

The BBC’s most popular worldwide story – and it’s wrong.

The only problem is that, it turns out, Supermodel Gisele Not in Buffett’s Bear Camp on Dollar After All, Manager Tells CNBC:

This morning a Bloomberg story got picked up by several news outlets, including Warren Buffett Watch, reporting that Bundchen had asking to be paid in euros rather than dollars due to uncertainty about the U.S. currency’s future. That would have put her in the same camp as Buffett, who’s been bearish on the dollar for awhile now.

But just a few minutes ago, CNBC Squawk Box producer Stephanie Landsman spoke by telephone with Anne Nelson, Bundchen’s manager. Nelson tells us reports that Gisele wants to be paid in euros are “false.” Nelson’s take: “Some idiot in Brazil reported something just to make news.”

Nelson points out that Gisele lives in New York City, and thus needs U.S. dollars for her big-city lifestyle.

Those pesky wire-services, again – though at least this one gets credited – presumably because the BBC wasn’t willing to take responsibility for standing up such a dubious sounding story themselves.

Bündchen’s manager’s statement of the obvious (to anyone in possesion of half-a-brain and access to Google that is), that “Gisele lives in New York City, and thus needs U.S. dollars for her big-city lifestyle”, rather gives the game away, at least for any reporter who wants to honestly report the finer details of the remuneration of a supermodel (who’s not exactly a household name, at least not in this household), as distinct from reporters keen to rush into print with an anti US-dollar story.

I wonder if we’re going to see the BBC publish a correction just as prominently for just as long, or if we’ll have to make do with a small after-thought of a correction on the story page, long after the damage is done and most people have moved on…

Update: Supermodel Gisele not dumping dollars for euros, her sister says:

“This information is not true … I do not recall ever having said anything that could be interpreted in that way.”

The company that handles publicity and contract negotiations for Gisele in Brazil, Image Net, has demanded a retraction from various media outlets, Patricia Buendchen said.

Thank you to Biased BBC reader moonbat nibbler for the links.

:

A former mayor and his wife have been convicted of fraudulently claiming state benefits.

John Walker, 57, who was mayor of Sefton, and his wife Catie, 43, were found guilty of exaggerating ill health to obtain disability living allowance.

Two Biased BBC readers pointed out a surprising omission from the BBC report, contrasting it with this earlier report from the Liverpool Daily Post, Benefit fraud trial mayor victim of ‘grudge’:

A former mayor and his wife were accused of swindling benefits because of political grudge against him, a court heard today.

John Walker, 57, the former Labour mayor of Sefton, Merseyside, and his wife Catie, 49, face two counts of conspiring to falsify applications for state benefits.

Can you spot the obvious detail that escaped the notice of the fearless and impartial reporters at BBC Views Online (or at least escaped their report)?

Yes, it’s that the ex-Mayor is, surprise, surprise, from the Labour Party.

BBC Views Online’s latest ‘Spot the (Labour) Party‘ competition

We’ve seen this sort of BBC Views Online omission a few times before when dodgy councillors have had their comeuppance. Usually it’s the Labour Party that doesn’t get mentioned, though to be fair to BBC Views Online, I recall one occasion when it was the Conservative Party that was omitted – which raises the question, are such omissions down to bias, or is it just incompetence, another of the “small but significant shortcomings of the News Website“, as ‘John Reith’, our resident anonymous BBC commenter put it?

P.S. JR, you’ve forgotten to reply to a couple of points raised re. your comment above:

i) asking you to enumerate some of the “small but significant shortcomings of the News Website“, so that BBC News Online might benefit from your wisdom and we might understand BBC Views Online better; and,

ii) my suggestion on how those of you at the BBC “involved in the real business of broadcast journalism (making TV and radio)“ might avoid “get[ting] a bit narked“ about being associated with the “small but significant shortcomings of the News Website“;

Knowing how assiduous you are I’m sure this was just an oversight. Perhaps when you have a minute you might address these very interesting points. Thank you.

P.P.S. Apologies for the recent paucity of posts. Sometimes real life gets in the way.

, might as well have been a Labour Party Press Release – a jolly retelling of Ed Balls’ words, unencumbered by any opposition response (not even from the BBC’s favoured ‘opposition’, the LibDems), with, for good measure, a free kick at David Cameron at the end.

Biased BBC reader Pete points out another BBC Views Online story, NHS staff protest against reforms, apparently so universally uncontroversial that it too requires no balancing comment.